Book summary
Samenvatting van De dag voor gisteren
- 8 min. leestijd
- 8 key ideas
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
Two boys creep out at half past eleven to a magic pool in Hayward's Wood, and a wish waits for them.
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De dag voor gisteren in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 2 h 45 min2 h 15 min fast, 3 h 20 min slow
- Lengte
- 39.800 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Uitdagend long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1912by Richard Middleton
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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De dag voor gisteren in short
The Day Before Yesterday adds up to one argument made of small pictures. Childhood, Middleton says, is a way of seeing, in which a cupboard is a ship and a pool is enchanted. The grown-up world calls this foolish, and tries to replace it with facts, lessons and common sense.
What De dag voor gisteren is about
Two boys slip out of a sleeping house at half past eleven, hand in hand, to stand beside a pool in Hayward's Wood and make a wish. They are sure the water is enchanted. Do they speak the wish? You will have to listen to find out.
The Day Before Yesterday is a collection of short essays by Richard Middleton, who died in 1911. Many pieces look back at childhood through a boy who believes in pirates and magic carpets, and who calls the adults around him the Olympians. Middleton wants to show how a child sees, and what is lost when we stop.
Voor wie is het?. You will love this book if you enjoy warm, funny memories of nursery and garden, if pirates and fairy tales still tug at you, or if you like essayists with a twinkle.
The 8 key ideas
Key idea 1 · free to read
A dusty cupboard can become a pirate ship
The book opens with the mouse cupboard, a low space running the length of a big attic beneath the sloping roof. The grown-ups see only dust and mice. The children see a refuge where an aggrieved child can sulk, plot revenge, and then plan acts of great generosity.
Imagination does the work. Through cracks in the roof tiles the children see sky, and a nearby cistern bubbles like water against a hull. A rusty cutlass hangs at one end, full of notches, and no one may doubt that the notches came from battle. The ship gets a name, the Black Margaret, and a crew of pirates. Ginger beer is drunk like rum, and dried apple rings are a rich cargo captured at sea. The mice are given a roving commission as savage rats.
The same trick works on a train. A boy travels north under the eye of three disapproving aunts. Out of the window he sees dragons in the hollows, witches in thatched cottages and a great bird called a roc. He decides he has been travelling for three hundred years.
A child does not need a good place, only a place that can be changed. Any small, shabby corner can become a whole world when imagination is allowed to work on it.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
Play makes dull things into grand adventures
Several essays follow the same pattern, a humble object lifted into glory by play.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
Grown-ups mean well but cannot understand
Middleton calls the adults the Olympians, gods who live far away, hand down rules and sometimes smile.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
Wonder lives in the dark and the quiet
Some of the best-loved pieces are about moments when the world seems to open.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
Some adults keep the child alive
A group of portraits shows grown-ups the children admire.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
Children see small things and feel big moods
A few essays study how children see.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Facts and schooling can starve the imagination
The sharpest essays turn from memory to argument.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Growing old well means staying close to children
The collection also offers comfort.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Vragen over De dag voor gisteren
What is The Day Before Yesterday about?
It is a collection of short essays by Richard Middleton, recalling a Victorian childhood. The pieces cover pirate games, gardens, cricket, bedtime and fairy tales, and also argue that wonder matters more than facts.
Who are the Olympians in Middleton's essays?
The Olympians are the grown-ups, seen from a child's height. Middleton uses the name for parents, aunts and uncles who rule the household like distant gods, mean well, and rarely understand what children care about.
Is The Day Before Yesterday a true story?
The essays are drawn from memory and observation, and many speak in the first person, though the author shapes them with humour and invention. They were written in the early 1900s, before Middleton died in 1911.
Is it easy to read the essays one at a time?
Each essay is short and stands alone, so you can pick any title and enjoy it. The language is lively, the scenes are vivid, and the humour keeps each page moving.
What is the main message of the book?
Middleton holds that a child's imagination is a real way of knowing the world, and that adults lose something precious when they replace wonder with facts. He suggests staying close to children to keep it alive.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Middleton, Richard. The Day Before Yesterday. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday.
Middleton, R. (2026). The day before yesterday. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday (Original work published 1912)
Middleton, Richard. The Day Before Yesterday. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday.
@book{middleton2026day,
author = {Middleton, Richard},
title = {The Day Before Yesterday},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday},
note = {First published 1912}
}
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